Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Cristo Rey

This service I did was visiting the
school Cristo Rey in downtown Baltimore, which is private a Jesuit school for
inner city kids. For me this was very exciting and I got to learn more about
what they do there for all of their kids and also I got to meet some of these
kids. Learning more about the school I knew the kids who attend comes from poor
and high crime areas, so getting to know them was very interesting. During our
visit the kids asked us different questions about being a student in college
and how it was to be an athlete. During these questions you noticed how well
behaved these kids were and Cristo Rey have done them really good. They all
spoke very well and they all were engaged. One thing I noticed though was we
got a lot of questions about how expensive college is, and these kids were only
in 11th grade. They almost sounded like adults who were worried
about paying the bills and not kids. This really gave me an insight in their
lives and how they need to take care of themselves and probably also the rest
of their family by going to college. So overall this meeting gave me an insight
about the community we live in and everything is not that easy for everyone in
Baltimore. Taking things for granted is very easy to do but meeting these kids
make me realize you shouldn’t and it is far greater things in life than the small
things.

“My Papa’s Waltz” is a about the
author’s feelings after he loss his father in a very young age. The memory he
has of his father and that is written in this poem is some sort of
controversial. According to me the sound of the poem does not represent a happy
memory. Reading the poem the picture of the narrator’s father is that he is an
alcoholic and abusive. “The whiskey on your breath” translates to alcoholic
according to me. Alcoholics usually are abusive and “the hand that held my
wrist” strengthens that argument. If it would have been a happy memory the line
would have been more of he held my hand than my wrist. The title that he uses “Papa”
instead of “Father” is interesting. For me a father is someone you respect and
his choice of not using it is because he did not respect him and therefore he
used the word papa.

Connecting this to Cristo Rey I
know a lot of the students who attend that school have experienced parents or
people close to them being abusive and alcoholics. I believe a lot of these
kids would recognize themselves in this poem. They come from neighborhoods with
low income and high crime rate, which leads to abusiveness and alcoholism.

“Cincinnati” represents a lot what
is wrong with the society today. The narrator tells about how she is new to the
city and no one knows her, except one who spits on her face and calling her a
dirty Jap. She was being attacked because of her race and in the end she said,
“Everyone knew me” and that sums this whole poem up.

The poem “Cincinnati” is about
prejudice and racism. People do not know her but they still have their
prejudice of her, because she is Japanese. People all over the world are being
drawn over one line and I think this poem shows that. The meaning with it is
how can you know someone if you never met them. This as earlier said happens
all the time and everyone does it but it is not the Jesuit way to go and we
need educate future generations to not do this. The kids at Cristo Rey are
definitely a group of people who experience that. People have assumptions about
them because they come from lesser neighborhoods and family who don’t have the
same opportunities as everyone else. Kids like those at Cristo Rey might be
bullied because of prejudice and that is something that needs to stop. So
visiting the school gave me a good view of what was going on their and what
they are doing to prevent things like that.

“The Cask of Amontillado” represents
almost the same as “Cincinnati” about assumptions. Montresor want to kill
Furtunato for an unknown reason and his motive is not clear in the story. He
wants to kill Furtunato for something that might not be true. He refers to
“thousand injuries” and “when he ventured upon insult” as his motives but those
are very vague. He almost sounds insane by doing something so cruel based on
assumptions. Just like the narrator in “Cincinnati” people were attacking her
because they thought something about her because she was Japanese and maybe
Montresor had the same feelings about Furtunato that he came from this specific
family, who he disliked.

For me all of these stories can be connected to Cristo Rey and the importance of assumptions. We do not know anyone before we got to know them. Just seeing a person and having prejudice is wrong and it is something we need to educate about this in the community because we cannot be divided.